Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Blair Babylon (ebook reader screen txt) 📖

Quentin Sault loitered in the galley near the back of the plane, leaning against the wall, and Maxence watched him as the man stared out a porthole, not even blinking. “Yes, I heard that as I was leaving, just before I turned off my phone. Sault told me a story about the rest, but I want corroboration.”

“Yeah,” Alexandre said, a cynical laugh filling that syllable. “Sault might still be doing Pierre’s dirty work. You never know with him.”

“Tell me what happened.”

He sighed. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Just tell me what happened to Pierre.”

Alexandre said, “After Flicka came back to the palace, there were rumors of tension between her and Pierre, despite all social media they dropped of them being all lovey-dovey. Pierre wouldn’t leave her alone with anyone or even allow her to talk privately on her phone. Then, in the middle of the Winter Ball in Monaco, there was some kind of fracas, and she was gone. I mean, like the floor swallowed her up.”

Maxence chuckled and shook his head. “Flicka always did have a flair for the theatrical.”

“Pierre chased her across Europe and found her at her father’s castle in Germany. They had a fight, I heard, an ass-kicking for the ages. It ended with Flicka telling Pierre she would never go back with him, that she had divorced him, and it was legal and binding.”

Max rubbed the side of his face. If Pierre was divorced, he wouldn’t be eligible to be elected as the Prince of Monaco. Protestant countries could get away with divorced monarchs, but Monaco was Catholic.

Pierre’s whole life would have been crumbling around him.

Alexandre said, “He grabbed a gun and shot himself. No one was close enough to stop him. Flicka and her bodyguard both said that’s what happened, and there were police present and CCTV cams. There’s video, though it’s hard to get a hold of. My wife is friends with Wulfram’s wife, and he had access to the CCTV cams on his computer because, well, Wulf. No matter what anyone suspects, neither Jules nor anyone else assassinated him. Pierre did it. Sault has been a shell of himself ever since.”

“That’s essentially what he told me,” Maxence said. “I didn’t know about the Winter Ball, though. Is Flicka okay?”

“As well as can be expected and then some. Great, actually. That’s why I went to the US. She—”

Max’s phone chimed with an incoming call. He checked the screen and said, “Xan, Marie-Therese is calling me. Are you on your way back to Monaco?”

“Yeah, We’re somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. I don’t know where. It looks deep.”

“Excellent, I’ll see you on The Rock. Call as soon as you get in.” Maxence clicked over to his other cousin’s call. “Marie-Therese, how are you?”

“Maxence! Max, you’re okay. You are okay, aren’t you?” Her low and feminine voice was at its highest, hysterical pitches for her. She sang low alto.

Max reassured Marie-Therese that he was, indeed, not dead in the slightest. He asked lightly, “What’s going on in the palace?”

“Oh, my goodness. Monaco is in an uproar.”

“Really? The tourists are rioting?”

She laughed, her tone light with relief. “No, thank God. But everyone on the Crown Council or with any stake in the outcome of the election is mincing around like they’re walking on hot beach sand. It’s insane. No one knows what government policies and contracts will be in force a week or a month from now. Pierre would have just continued Uncle Rainier’s plans because they’ve been working together for years, but now everything might change. Any business with a government contract is in chaos. Businesses are preemptively laying off their entire staff to hold onto capital, just in case.”

Monaco’s unemployment must be climbing fast. Max didn’t like that. The election should be sooner rather than later to take care of Monaco’s citizens.

Unlike Alexandre, Marie-Therese watched palace politics, so Max asked her, “Who thinks they’ve got a shot at an upset?”

She said, “Everyone assumes you’re coming back to be crowned.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Her sigh was a blast of static over his phone. “I don’t know. Alexandre gathered up a bunch of cousins and flounced so we can’t form a quorum. No one wants to admit they want it because there are rumors of threats going around. Christine is just gone. It’s like the Grimaldi have gone full-blown Borgia.”

Maxence leaned back in his chair and signaled to the stewardess. “Coffee,” he called to her, and she spun on her heel to march back to the galley. A buzz might make palace politics less stressful, but he needed his wits about him. “What about your father?”

“What about him?”

Her father was Prince Jules Grimaldi, often discussed in hushed, fearful tones. His few dabbles into Monaco’s government had ended in scandal and, nearly, criminal charges. “Does he think he has a shot?”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“You haven’t talked to him?”

“Not about this.”

Interesting. “If your father were thinking about rolling the dice, wouldn’t he ask you for your vote?”

She paused. “He’s my father. He would assume he has it.”

“Does he?”

Her sigh this time had a hiss to it, like exasperation. “If I want not to be disinherited, I suppose he could assume that. But if there were someone with a better claim, someone who’d made sure he had the votes before the meeting, the new prince could make sure my father can’t cut me out of the royal income.”

He nodded. “Absolute monarchy has its privileges.”

“I like my lifestyle, Max.”

“Understood.”

“You know, there are a lot of whispers about this.”

“That’s not shocking.”

She said, “So, a lot of people are in hushed meetings with other nobles who have a vote, not just Alex.”

Ah, here came the good stuff. “Oh?”

“There are whispers, especially if you outright refuse to be nominated, that it could become a free-for-all, and the order of precedence will mean nothing. That’s crazy, Max. What if someone who’s number eight or eighteen steps forward for election, and they get it? Monaco could